NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #3: GROWN UPS 2 (2013)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 


Adam Sandler's Grown Ups 2 (while not strictly a bomb) is the reason I invented the term "torturously okay." It's the worst kind of comedy: it's not completely unfunny, but there's nothing in it that warrants its existence.  It's a movie made strictly for financial reasons.  Here is a collection of some of the top comic actors working today, serving a script that... well, I doubt there even was a script.  Three talented people are credited (Sandler, Fred Wolf, and Tim Herlihy), but I think Sandler and director Dennis Dugan just concocted some rudimentary comedy film scenarios and directed their cast through them loosely.

There are allegations that the film is actually a Ponzi scheme: it cost $80 million (much of it, no doubt, from product placement) to make when it could have been made for, I dunno, 1/80 of that.  The movie looks horrible; if you ignore the gargantuan cast of all-stars, it has the look of a multicamera sitcom.  The actors--many of whom are Sandler's friends--were no doubt paid handsomely, and Sandler and crew were granted the abnormally large budget on the faith that he and the stars would grant them considerable returns at the box office.

It worked.  The movie made $133 million domestically and about $246 million worldwide, proving that the rest of the world has no right to criticize any of America's crassness.

I can understand why Sandler has chosen to do it this way.  He's the cinematic equivalent of Weezer, the iconic '90s group.  After releasing a risky, personal album for which they were harshly criticized, they retreated back into bubblegum pophood and haven't released anything good since.  Sandler flirted with the idea of being an actual respectable actor: he was terrific in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, and was pretty good in Mike Binder's otherwise disposable Reign Over Me.  But lately it seems like he's been scared back into his comfort zone, content to headline dull lowest-common-denominator duds like Just Go With It and Blended.

Admittedly, I wouldn't have given a thought to watching Grown Ups 2 if not for two Kiwi gents, Tim and Guy, who started a quite entertaining podcast this year--"The Worst Idea of All Time Podcast"--for which they watch the film once a week for a year.  It sounds completely idiotic--the film is not only inane but practically contentless, with very little substance worthy of description, let alone discussion--but actually, it's brilliant.  Even necessary.  When people around the world are spending $246 million to see Grown Ups 2, something is wrong.  It's a cinematic Wolf of Wall Street; it pumped up its penny stock script with big name actors and high quantities of bodily humor, then sold.  Tim and Guy are the Kyle Chandler character, exposing the scheme.

I should reveal that I haven't seen Grown Ups 1... but really, why should I?  Grown Ups 2 isn't a Godfather Part II which fills in the blanks of its predecessor.  There's no plot; the movie's 101 minutes are loosely structured around a backyard party at Sandler's house which everyone in town attends.  With few exceptions, no character learns anything during the course of the film.  Each one of its four leading guys--Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, and David Spade--leaves the film pretty much as they found it.  Sandler is a violent lout, Rock is a passive-aggressive fool, James is a punching bag, and Spade... I'll come back to him.

A look at the characters' names should give you an idea of how much real thought was put into the film: Officer Fluzoo, Principal Tardio, Mama Ronzoni, Bumpty McKenzie.  The "story" threads seem to have been purchased in bulk, partially eaten, from the sitcom factory.  Character arcs are set up and dropped.  For example:

• Rock tells us early in the film that his wife (Maya Rudolph) has forgotten their anniversary, and that this will give him capital to spend later in the marriage.  An interesting premise.  Never followed through.
• James is constantly visiting his mother because he feels he doesn't get respect at home.  His wife (Maria Bello) tries to make up for it by taking him to a cheerleader car wash, which turns out to be a male cheerleader car wash--ho, ho--and that's pretty much the end of that.
• There's some momentary stuff about Sandler being insecure about having a new baby with his wife (Salma Hayek), which is apparently resolved in the end, but I really can't figure out why.

The only part of the story that the movie follows through with is Spade's arc, in which he finds out rather suddenly that he has a child he never knew about.  The kid, Braden (Alexander Ludwig), is supposedly 16 but looks 30, and makes Spade feel uncomfortable, but the two eventually find common ground and build a relationship.  Spade, dare I say, gives the only well-thought-out performance in the film, and is the only character who changes at all during the film.  As a result, the scenes between him and Braden are kind of sweet and moving.  Ludwig has fun as the kid, though his dialogue seems to have been written for a Neanderthal type, when the actor looks more like an overgrown boy-band Kurt Cobain.

Is the movie funny?  Well, sometimes.  A few of the gags do stick, but most of the ones that work are subtle, improvised, and rapid.  Sandler compatriots Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran, and Allen Covert give reliable background performances that contain some of the movie's best chuckles.  Jon Lovitz, as a lecherous gym janitor, has some of the funniest moments in the film, and prompts more laughs with one nonsequitur than the rest of the actors get with the movie's many painfully labored set pieces.  Most are set up for the characters to find funny: when ice cream shop owner Colin Quinn is fixing the soft serve machine and it looks like he's pooping, they all laugh and laugh and we sit silent.

Basically, anything that was intentionally put into the movie doesn't work.  The sub-plot about Kevin James's functionally illiterate son isn't funny.  A brief introduction in which a deer enters Sandler's house and pees on everyone: not funny.  The male cheerleader gag: not funny, and wasteful of cameos from several SNL alums who are doing better things now.  Nick Swardson's histrionic performance as a drugged-out school bus driver: annoying.  The many gags targeted at Spade's girlfriend, a female bodybuilder who's frequently called "he": very not funny.  In fact, none of the female performers are given much to do: not even Cheri Oteri, who appears as Sandler's ex-girlfriend of sorts and has no effect on any of the film's happenings.

The main actors, Spade excepted, are shockingly underwhelming.  Usually any of these guys and gals, Sandler included, would be a highlight of the movie he or she is in.  Imagine Chris Rock reduced to playing a schlub, Maya Rudolph as a dutiful wife who occasionally bursts with stereotypical Tyler Perry-like Mad Black Woman intensity, Kevin James as a doormat, Maria Bello barely in the film, and Tim Meadows, one of the most reliable deadpan comic character-actors working, being forced to gawk and mug in every scene.  Meadows's catchphrase is, apparently, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" He uses it as a response to everything, and presents it as a key laugh line, akin to "Dyn-o-mite!" or "'eyyyyyyy." I surmise that either it was explained in the first film, or it's a private joke between Sandler and friends that the audience isn't allowed in on.

The numerous bit actors redeem the film a little bit from the boredom induced by its stars.  To say they steal the show would imply there was a show to steal.  Steve Buscemi, who is for some reason a regular in Sandler films, is good for a few laughs as a driver's ed instructor.  Shaquille O'Neal is fun to watch as an imposing but shy police officer.  Director Dugan has a brief role as a doctor examining Sandler's son; neither the premise nor the scene is funny, but his delivery is spot-on.  Rob Schneider appears nowhere in the film, and for that he deserves the most praise.

Oddly, the most laughs in the film are delivered by the least likely suspect: Taylor Lautner, who takes his role as an ornery frat kid just seriously and straight-faced enough.  The scenes in which he and his bros (who include Sandler's nephew Jared as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick) taunt Sandler and his crew of old farts, exchange elaborate high-fives and ridiculous handshakes, and perform rage-induced backflips work exactly in the way they're supposed to.  I never liked Lautner as the heartthrob in the Twilight movies, but he might have a future playing heavies like this.  He's very good.

** out of ****

"The Worst Idea of All Time Podcast" can be found on iTunes.

NOTE: Dennis Dugan now works, I believe, full time for Sandler, as he's primarily directed vehicles for him and his colleagues since Happy Gilmore.  As an antidote for this one I invoke his debut film, Brain Donors, an often hilarious modern Marx Brothers film, with John Turturro in the Groucho role.  It proves he knows his stuff, and may be only minimally to blame for this mess.

It Came From Netflix Instant: DARKNET (2013-14)

The premise for the Canadian TV show "Darknet" isn't the freshest, and sounds an awful lot like the plot of feardotcom, William Malone's disappointing rip-off of The Ring.  It's a series of loosely connected fables centering around a website that features grotesque mutilations, maimings, snuff films, all things which we hold near and dear to our hearts.  Everyone who visits the website becomes roped into a macabre underworld.

It's silly, but the show is actually a lot of fun, in a way that not many horror TV shows have been since "Tales from the Crypt." Each episode consists of several threads involving not only murder, but the sensationalizing of violence through the internet, and viral video in particular.  A medical student suspects there to be an intruder in her house.  A businesswoman thinks she spies a peeping tom outside her hotel room.  A woman receives a series of e-mails with surveillance footage of people being murdered.  The threads are slowly revealed to tie together in interesting and subtle ways, occasionally across episodes.

As with all anthologies, the effectiveness of each story varies, but none overstays its welcome.  "Darknet" also doesn't have same problem as, for instance, The ABCs of Death, which limited its entries to 5 minutes and thus didn't give any of them the time to build suspense or mood.  Since the stories in each "Darknet" are tonally similar and interwoven with one another, the atmosphere and tension are allowed to build gradually.

The first episode, written and directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice), is an appropriate hook for the remaining five episodes.  Episode 3 has the most memorable sequence, in which a smug salesman is tailed in the street by an odd stranger.  Episode 4 is the weakest, hinging on a hospital plot line that's more predictable than the rest (though it features a secondary story about breast implants gone wrong that's a must see).  The final episode of the season (directed by The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh's Rodrigo Gudiño) is a knockout of a closer, taking the concept of internet trolling to a whole new level.

"Darknet" is available on Netflix Instant.

NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #2: DREAM HOUSE (2011)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 

Sometimes good actors can save a potentially awful movie.  At other times the presence of exceptional acting in an otherwise dismal affair only worsens the experience.  With Dream House it's a little bit of both; the film isn't awful by any stretch, but it does beg the question of why it attracted such talent in the first place, when it seems to be a regular old psychological/supernatural thriller in the M. Night Shyamalan vein.

The talent in this case belongs to Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, and several other very good actors who grace this lackluster film with their presence.  And they're not merely taking a paycheck; they're good in the film.  Very good.  Their dedication may be attributable to the presence of Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) behind the camera.  Or maybe it's that Craig and Weisz fell in love while making the film.  I suppose it'd be difficult to be ambivalent at that point.

The plot comes courtesy of David Loucka, who a year later would give us the unwatchable piece of junk The House at the End of the Street, with Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue.  His script for this film is unlikely but workable, as Sheridan proves with skill that it does not deserve.

Will Atenton (Craig) leaves his city job at a publishing company to write a book at his new suburban home with his idyllic family: wife Libby (Weisz) and irrepressibly cute young daughters Trish and Dee Dee (Taylor and Claire Geare, who are terrific).  Soon strange things begin to happen.  Someone seems to be stalking the house.  Goth kids are camping out nearby and whispering about things that happened in the house years earlier.  As Will investigates, he finds some truths he wishes he'd not heard.

I won't reveal the plot twist that happens at the movie's midpoint, although it's not entirely unpredictable.  Those interested in seeing the film will want to avoid the trailer, which unceremoniously spoils it.

In a less worthy director's hands, the midpoint twist would be an early climax to the film, and it would circle the drain for its remaining 45 minutes. Rather than rely on pulling the rug out from under us, Sheridan uses it as a shift in the movie's framing device, turning it from a mystery-thriller into a Jacob's Ladder-style psychological drama which shifts back and forth between two realities, one just as genuine as the other.

Sheridan, with help of cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and production designer Carol Spier (also heavy hitters who are slumming it here), downplays inconsistencies in the script by setting the film in a constant dreamlike present.  Pay attention to the early scenes, before the big turn, and you'll realize that very little is said other than vague greetings and goodbyes.  There's no exposition.  We don't often know why what's happening is happening: only that it is.  Will's scenes opposite his family are just a little too perfect, for a reason.

It's only in the final act that Sheridan loses control.  It's an ending that was likely tacked onto the film after test audiences reportedly disapproved of Sheridan's first cut, and it becomes more ridiculous the longer you think about it.  Though it wraps up most of the movie's plot discrepancies (and explains an early out-of-nowhere appearance from Elias Koteas on a train), it does so laughably.

Still, Sheridan and the actors don't phone it in, even when the film is lost to ludicrousness.  Craig and Weisz, as well as Naomi Watts as a neighbor who may know more than she lets on, give believable performances which stay grounded even when the script messes them around.  Dream House doesn't exactly do them justice, but oddly, they're not wasted either.

** 1/2 out of ****

NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #1: DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2014)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 


Movies that reaffirm faith tend to take more of a thrashing from moviegoers than others, unless they're and marketed directly and exclusively to evangelicals, like God's Not Dead or whatever Kirk Cameron happens to be starring in nowadays.  Mainstream religious movies are usually dismissed as silly.  I don't quite know why; certainly Bill Maher hasn't had such a wide influence.  M. Night Shyamalan takes a licking when his films dare to explore the notion that characters in a horror film are allowed to be redeemed rather than be allowed to fester in a rusty prison like the hapless souls in the Saw films.

Scott Derrickson has been an unabashedly religious filmmaker all along.  His first theatrical feature as director, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, was bland anti-science trash, but his later work exhibited more positive themes from a Christian point of view.  The Day the Earth Stood Still, while not the tightest film, had an admirable message about stewardship of the earth.  Sinister, one of the scariest movies I've recently seen, took a quite conservative stance on the allure of violence, and presented its slayings to be truly horrifying rather than titillating.

Deliver Us from Evil, his latest film, is also decidedly pro-faith, though it understands why its characters have lost it.  It doesn't condescend like many films of its type do, nor is its message oversimplified.

It also doesn't quite work, but it's not bad while it's not working.  Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman put more work into this film than the usual demonic possession romp usually gets.

NYPD Officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) is known for having a "radar" that leads him to the right criminal.  When he sets upon one man and one woman who are committing strange crimes, he links them to an Iraq War veteran who may have brought something evil back to New York with him.  A local priest, Fr. Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez, of the brilliant epic Carlos), offers his help.

The film unfortunately comes bearing the dreaded "Based on a true story" disclaimer, which has doomed brave films before it, like The Conjuring.  Most "true" horror films suffer either from changing the story too much, or from trying too hard to be convincing.  Oddly enough, there really isn't much in the film I can't imagine happening.  Though there are fleeting supernatural moments, the villains are all decidedly human.  The movie does have some spooky scary boogeyman moments, and an exorcism scene that's beyond silly, but at the center it's about how real evil shows itself: through violence, hate, and vengeance.

Bana and Ramirez are solid anchors for the film, lending credibility to a screenplay that's always threatening to go cuckoo.  A late scene in which Sarchie confesses the reason for his loss of faith to Mendoza has an awfully familiar arc, but Bana and Ramirez deliver it captivatingly.  Joel McHale (yes, Joel McHale) is a welcome presence as Sarchie's streetwise partner.  Sean Harris is appropriately nasty as the perpetrator, a demon with a particular affinity for Jim Morrison. (I like that the movie never explains why the demon keeps quoting The Doors.  Maybe he just likes them.)

The movie still doesn't quite come together.  The police procedural plot is trite, and we've seen Sarchie's family sub-plot a thousand times before.  What do you want to bet that the tough cop has trouble being open and honest with his loving wife (Olivia Munn) and daughter?  What do you want to bet they'll patch things up in the end?

As with most demonic possession movies nowadays, the final exorcism is a letdown.  It's always a shame when a movie that's been pretty savvy all along descends into hysterics and shouting.  Derrickson lends the film enough nice touches that we wish it had been a more cohesive work.

** 1/2 out of ****

NOTE: The movie's final line is "Do you reject Satan and all his works?" I am disappointed that the response was not "Yes, except 'Light My Fire.'"